Jurgen Klopp hails “character of these boys” as Silva laments “soft” Fulham

Jurgen Klopp lauded Liverpool’s “complete” second-half performance after they secured a 3-1 victory at Fulham to move level on points with top-of-the-table Arsenal.

Liverpool regained their winning touch in the Premier League after last week’s 1-0 home defeat to Crystal Palace as they enjoyed three points with goals from Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ryan Gravenberch and Diogo Jota.

Timothy Castagne had equalised for the Cottagers with his first goal for the club in the first half but it was not enough as Klopp’s men showed their class after the break.

“The second half was a complete performance, if you want,” Klopp said.

“It was our best performance so far that we’ve had against Fulham. I thought the next step was to win today, the boys did that and it was really good. We created much more chances, we could’ve scored more often.

“I’m really happy with the performance and hopefully nobody got hurt and we will see because we have to recover quickly as we’re playing on Wednesday.

“We’re in the situation we are at the moment because of the character of these boys. Nobody expected us to be here and we are and that’s because of the boys.”

Alexander-Arnold’s 32nd-minute free-kick was the pick of the goals after his stunning strike gave the Reds the lead.

Klopp believes “nobody plays like” the full-back after he returned from a knee injury at Anfield last week.

When asked how important it is to have Alexander-Arnold back in the side, Klopp added: “It’s super important.

“Nobody is like Trent so that’s how it is. The way we play with him can be different so it’s super helpful and I’m really happy about that.

“It’s good for once to have all the big guns around.

“It’s a great free-kick and he has that from time to time. We needed it, it was a great goal, the other goals were good. For long periods of time Trent was exceptional, superb.”

Fulham boss Marco Silva admitted the defending in the lead-up to Liverpool’s second and third goals needed to be better as his side rued a leaky performance at the back.

Silva said: “I think the third goal killed the Game, we were very loose on the right. It was one moment we should be stronger in the challenge because we were soft and it was a moment to stop the situation before Jota scored.

“It was hard to concede the second and third in the second half. After that it was hard for us to react.”